Countdown to Gobbletown

There’s this family tradition we have in my husband’s family, called the “top five”. Top five restaurants, top five movies, top five gorgeous men on tv…I’ll spare you those lists for now but it’s important to note two short lists. First, the things I’m most talented at are 1. Eating 2. Reading; and 3. Finding great parking spaces. Second, the three things I am most terrible at are 1. Crafts 2. Sewing; and 3. Brake and Bake (don’t even try to help with this one, it will never work). Nonetheless, I was hit by the Thanksgiving bug and decided to try to make this turkey I had seen once somewhere online. Turns out, I’m not too terrible at crafting or just got extremely lucky. Point is, and likely the theme of this whole blog- if I can, you DEFINITELY can.

This is my “Countdown to Gobble Town”. It’s a turkey calendar that helps our littles not only grow excited for Thanksgiving, but to maintain the spirit of the season throughout the month. And even though we’re a couple of weeks away, this is well worth the couple of hours of effort it takes to make and will help you and your littles quickly get into gear for the holiday. The concept is simple. Each day your little gets to fill out a feather with one thing they’re grateful for and then they get to ‘pin the feather on the pavo’.

Here’s what you need:

A medium sized styrofoam ball

A small styrofoam ball

Two different shades of yarn, I chose a lighter brown and cream.

Toothpicks

Construction paper

Two buttons

Red felt and yellow felt

A hot glue gun, and scissors.

If you want your turkey without feet, cut about a half-inch to an inch off the bottom of the larger ball (the body) so it will sit flat. Next, loop the brown yarn around the medium styrofoam ball, overlapping at the start to hold it in place (glue will prevent it from sitting flat. Wind the yarn around the ball, wrapping it tightly enough so the strands don’t slide. Wrap it around 15-20 times (simply depends on your preference), pushing the strands together as you wrap to avoid spacing and sliding. Once you’re ready to switch directions, hold the strand with one finger and tightly wind it in another direction, overlapping tightly over the first line to keep it in place.

Repeat these steps over and over again until the styrofoam is no longer visible. Then glue the end of the string down with hot glue. Repeat the same with the smaller styrofoam ball and cream yarn.

Once you’re all finished, you can attach the head to the body (opposite of the thanksgiving tradition, that’s an awful joke, I know). You can do this either with hot glue or by using a toothpick (poking one through both the body and then into the head).

Next, we work on our face. Take a single small square (maybe a little under 1 1/2 inch wide) and add a dab of glue to on the top center. Fold one corner over, add another dab of glue, then fold the other corner over. Glue the tip of a shortened toothpick and glue it to the inside. You’ll do something similar for the toes, rolling it tightly to make them long and narrow (four for each foot and glue three together and then glue a toothpick in-between the middle finger and then attach the back foot to hug the toothpick).

Next, cut fold one square of red felt in half and cut out the snoods (that sounds so awful but I promise, they’re called snoods).

Glue a shortened toothpick in-between both pieces of felt.

Now we get to put our turkey together just like a Mr. Potato Head. Stick in your beak, snood, and feet. Then choose two buttons or googly eyes and glue them right on.

Last step, feathers. Create a stencil, trace, and cut out 26 feathers. Lay them out in the color pattern of your choice and number them with a pen or marker of your choice. Glue a toothpick to the back of each feather.

Each day, write something you’re grateful for on a feather (from 26 down) and poke it in. My absolute favorite part of this turkey is that it can be used every year and I can save the feathers to show my littles, years down the road, just how blessed they’ve been. I’m grateful for this turkey. It gives me hope for bigger crafts in my future. Try it out and tag us in your photos so we can revel in all its glory! What are you grateful for?